I am having constant problems in Windows 10 where the screen saver works sometimes & not others. Having researched this, I find that thousands of people have the same problem & get little or no help from Microsoft.

I ran a Bitdefender full system scan that found bugs & after that the screen saver started working again, but not for long.
I then ran CC Cleaner which seemed to fix the problem for a day, then it started again.
So I have to keep turning my monitor off to protect it.
Does anybody out there know how to fix this issue.

OK, I understand . Do you have the problem that the screensaver just never starts, or does it sometimes appear and then disappear?

I suspect it'll be related to a USB device that is plugged in to your PC which isn't letting it think that the PC is inactive. Can you please try unplugging all USB devices temporarily (mouse, keyboard, printer, etc...) and then see if the screensaver works? If so, can you please try re-introducing them one at a time.

If you can identify which device is causing a problem, you can uncheck the "allow this device to wake the computer" from device manager > device properties > "power management" tab.

TJ

My screensaver runs intermittently. It will work for days then suddenly stops. It doesn’t disappear, just stops working intermittently.

For example, it wasn’t working when I turned in last knight & shutdown my monitor. This morning, when I switched on the monitor, it still wasn’t working, i.e. the spreadsheet I was working on appeared as soon as the monitor was switched on. Then about 10:00 hrs, it started working again with no intervention from me?

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TJ

No Ian, I always turn of the power to the monitor before turning in & have been doing so for donkey’s years.

The power switch for the monitor is not near the mouse.

In any event, when I switch the monitor back on the following morning no screen saver is working.

However, since 10:00 this morning it hasn’t faltered.

To save my monitor, I have for the last few days whilst the screensaver has been playing up, switched to a PC that isn’t powered up using my KVM switch.

The only other things recent are: -

I have been using an old USB memory that came with my old Dell PC (Windows XP) to transfer files to my Zoostorm PC. I have to do this as the Dell has Autocad installed & I have disconnected it from the internet for safety.

This morning, I got a low battery warning for my Logitech keyboard, replaced.

It turns out that the culprit was the combination of a web browser (in this case, Chrome) plus an open (actually pinned) tab of a streaming video service. My wife had two tabs that met that criteria pinned, namely: Netflix and Dish Anywhere.

It seems that those services since they are video streaming, prevent the screen from going to sleep. And it makes absolute sense. You wouldn’t want to be watching a show or a movie and have your screen saver kick in, right?

I’m sure that other video streaming services might have this same effect, but I haven’t tested it. Also, I haven’t tested if just an active tab on a browser will prevent the screen saver from launching, or if a non-active pinned tab might produce the same effect. Nor do I know if other browsers are affected or not.

Updated 9/16/17: So, the screen saver stopped working again. So, I thought about the sentences above and went to check the Windows Task Manager. It turns out that two instances of the Dish Anywhere Player. So, I killed those two processes and the screensaver started running as expected.

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I have Windows 10 on my netbook. The screensaver, the sleep mode and all the other power options, such as the screen should dim or go blank after a certain period, were not working. If I unplugged my wireless mouse and keyboard, then these options worked. To get the screen saver and power options to work when a wireless mouse is connected, do the following:
Go to All Programs, then to Windows Update. Download updates if needed. Then click on the link "Review Optional Updates". Of those, select "Microsoft HID non-user input data filter". Install that update.
Once done, the screensaver works even while a wireless mouse is plugged into the laptop.